The invention relates generally to an egg beating device and more specifically to a low-power device for scrambling an egg within its shell.
A review of the prior art discloses several devices designed to beat the contents of an egg within its own shell, including: U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,512 issued Mar. 12, 1974 to Djuvick; U.S. Pat. No. 2,760,763, issued Aug. 28, 1956 to Harper, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,316,861 issued Apr. 30, 1943 to Hansen.
Prior art devices for this purpose tended to be relatively heavy, cumbersome and complicated. They usually required substantial power and therefore were designed to plug into wall sockets so they could impart rotation of 2800 or more RPMs to the beater. The beater designs were not as efficient as desired. Further, while devices such as shown in Hansen U.S. Pat. No. 2,316,861 automatically turned the motor on and off, they did not limit rotation of the needle when the motor was off so that particular care had to be exercised when placing the egg on and removing it from the beater needle. Also, if the needle was off center, this promoted the beating action, but made it more difficult to impale the egg shell on the readily movable, eccentric needle point.
Further, in various prior art designs the orientation and/or configuration makes it difficult to handle the egg through all or part of scrambling operation. Apparently to avoid having to deal with egg leaking down into the motor or other mechanism of the device, the prior art devices noted above were arranged in unnatural orientations, e.g., with the needle pointing downwardly or off to the side.